


i wish my train was always late (so you could sit on my desk chair, pay for my bus fair, maybe later on you'll run your fingers through my hair)

by far2late



Series: desk chair [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Crack, Dick Grayson Being a Little Shit, Fluff, Gotham City is Terrible, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd is So Done, No Smut, Office AU, POV Tim Drake, Protective Jason Todd, Secretary Tim Drake, Secretary au, Tim Drake Being a Little Shit, Tim Drake Has a Bad Time, Tim Drake Needs a Break, Tim Drake is Not Red Robin, Tim Drake-centric, jason blows stuff up, joker sidekicks r not fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:40:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24956227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/far2late/pseuds/far2late
Summary: "Tim likes to think he’s good at his job after three years under Mr. Wayne’s wing, as smothering and heavy as it was. He’s managed to keep the company afloat and get the elusive senile man to at least a fourth of his most important meetings while avoiding ridiculous excuses that would send any sane man running for the hills. Gotham was Gotham, though, so no one bat an eye, usually."ortim drake is hired as an intern at wayne enterprises three years ago, and progressively learns to hate the ceo
Relationships: Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Everyone, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: desk chair [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806229
Comments: 27
Kudos: 314





	1. Chapter 1

Tim Drake, as resourceful as he was, was very out-of-place in this specific scenario. 

Most of it had come down to bad timing, really. He wasn’t _ trying  _ to get held up for ransom but being an easily-recognizable public figure mixed with desperate C-List Gotham criminals lead to an easy equation of  _ rich boy  _ plus  _ ransom  _ equals  _ lots of money. _

Course, anyone with a brain knew that such ransom attempts were very easily and quickly assuaged with the help of Batman and the GCPD, mostly the police with lower-level criminals. 

_  
_ When those criminals are the Joker’s lackeys trying to entertain themselves while their ringleader was in Arkham, it was probably inevitable a vigilante would intervene. Robin never really showed up for stuff like that, mostly just Batman in the most inconspicuous fashion someone could pull off when in broad daylight in a costume made for night-time shadows. 

It was funny to watch, in Tim’s opinion. He had his own form of rankings on how the rescuing would go, rating the criminals and their knowledge on how to tie basic knots to the banter between B-List criminal and whichever choice in vigilante decided to deal with Tim and his affinity for being kidnapped that day. 

Tim supposed that the knots for this round were almost tight enough, but not so much as to leave him helpless. He could probably saw through them in the loose space should he be bothered to do so, but honestly, he really wasn’t. Getting jumped at an ATM at almost one in the morning lead to a cranky, hungry, tired Tim who was trying to enjoy the one of two breaks a week he got from Wayne Enterprises and its sorry, old, wrinkly, prune-headed excuse of a Ken doll built in hell. 

Bruce Wayne was not fun to deal with, not when put to the task of wrangling him and his dozens of orphan children with issues to sign  _ very  _ important papers on a  _ very  _ strict deadline. It was usually a good move to get ready at least three or six weeks in advance, considering a third of that time would be dedicated to simply tracking them down. 

Tim likes to think he’s good at his job after three years under Mr. Wayne’s wing, as smothering and heavy as it was. He’s managed to keep the company afloat and get the elusive senile man to at least a fourth of his most important meetings while avoiding ridiculous excuses that would send any sane man running for the hills. Gotham was Gotham, though, so no one bat an eye, usually. 

The only obstacle at this point was trying to keep Mr. Wayne from opening his own line of manufacturing and funding Batman in public behind his back, leading to almost no breaks or vacations for Tim in fear he would come back to Lex Luthor in possession of several Batarangs and half-drawn schematics to the Batmobile. 

Whatever Mr. Wayne did on his own time was no one’s business but his own, and Tim on occasion when it got in the way of the very-carefully planned out timeline that had been bulldozed without a second thought by the difficult man. If he wanted to fund Batman and make materials for him? Fine! Keeping Wayne Enterprises out of it was just the smartest choice he had in the matter, and Tim was close to an aneurysm trying to explain this to the ever-smiley, dopey buffoon he was forced to call his job. 

Honestly, it was a miracle he had stuck around as long as he did. Either that or no one else in Gotham would hire him. Tim was under the suspicion that Mr. Wayne had something to do with it, but who was he to speak ill of his boss? 

Either way, this night had been incredibly exhausting for the twenty-year-old, dozing off in the chair that he was tied to, to the surprise of his captors. 

(They weren’t even kidnappers that Tim  _ knew.  _ Honestly, Tim would much rather be kidnapped by one of the Riddler’s helpers, or maybe the penguin. He had been wondering how Henry and his wife had been doing, and if they’d really had their kid yet. It was very exciting for the two of them, they were new to the whole parenting thing. Tim could relate, he wasn’t really prepared to babysit a man-child 24/7, but this line of work required a lot of compromise and learning on the go.) 

Tim could feel one of them poke him with their gun’s nozzle to make sure he hadn’t died all of a sudden and he did all but bite their heads off with a request to,  _ “Shut the fuck up, I’m tired. _ ”

Well, he was, anyway. As soon as he heard a loud explosion and a laugh in the distance, he groaned,  _ loudly.  _ Of course, it was this type of night, just his luck. 

  
The lackeys looked at him with a strange expression before getting their answer to the groan when the wall to the left of him exploded, sending dingy bits of warehouse and brick all over the floors and walls while Tim ducked his head, not wanting his hair to get messed up. 

The Red Hood strode through the space easily, taking down the only two in the room before looking over to Tim, making his way over as the other sawed through the bonds the way he would have much earlier. 

“Six out of ten,” Tim recounted easily, yawning as he rubbed at his eyes and pushed the hand Hood held up to him away, gaining a scoff. 

“Why?” The anti-hero demanded, voice petulant like a child who hadn’t been given his favourite toy. Tim shrugged, adjusting his sneakers before grabbing the overlarge jacket that the criminals had taken from him, dusting off debris before wrapping it around himself, not bothering to slip his arms through the sleeves and instead wear it like a shawl. 

“Woke me up when I finally dozed off,” Tim grunted, making his way out of the hole in the wall as Hood followed, the younger hopping over rocks on one foot and alternating between looking indifferent and disgusted at the gunk on the bottom of his shoes. 

“Ugh, Trident gum. Shitty kidnappers, shitty tastebuds,” Tim muttered under his breath, finally making his way through the last of the large holes that Hood had graced the walls with as he made his attempt at a perfect ten out of ten rescue rating. 

Maybe Tim should look into an app to rate the vigilantes that rescued him. Like some stupid version of Yelp. The idea of it made him snort, so he filed it away in a corner of his mind reserver for projects to complete after Mr. Wayne had finally gotten something done on time. 

Hood still followed after him as Tim made his way home, eventually stopping to sit in a bus stop and curl up on the seat, small body dwarfed next to the incredibly broad shoulders that had come with Hood, the anti-hero sitting next to him as he waited with Tim. 

“Is there a reason you’re coming with?” Tim questioned, looking over at the man with one eyebrow raised. Hood didn’t quiver under his gaze, though he swore he caught a tremor in his hand. Good. Alfred was training Tim well in mastering those particular looks, it seemed. 

Hood shrugged. “Bored.”

“Great,” Tim brightened up, smile shark-like now. “Can you do me a favour? Please find me Mr. Todd and ask him to meet with me in my office at Wayne Enterprises to go through the legal points of his will being revised and so I can ask when he’ll start playing an active part on the Board he had been reserved a spot on and what stake of the company he’ll decide to be responsible for. And would you  _ please  _ ask him to tell me when Mr. Wayne will be back in town? I don’t want to be ambushed with HR rioting at my office door when he attempts to mass-produce Batman products once more. Thank you  _ so  _ much, Mr. Hood. I appreciate it.”

Hood blinked. Tim continued smiling, eyes sharp enough to cut through the smoggy little troll bits left of Mr. Wayne’s soul. 

“...I’ll get back to him on that,” Hood spoke, getting up in what seemed to be a controlled panic to leave as fast as he could, leaving Tim sitting at the bus stop by himself, a satisfied smile left on his face. 

Finally. Peace and quiet. 


	2. Chapter 2

Tim was fine. Really, he was fine. He was just… incredibly tired. 

The office he had nearby Mr. Wayne’s office wasn’t an office so much as it was a desk in a hallway with many, many drawers lining the sides in the case of a tsunami of printer papers may one day attack their office, or so it seemed by the bulk of the furniture that had been bought. 

The previous night had left him sleepy due to the bus ride back to Gotham left him on high alert in the case of  _ very strange men make their way onto these buses at all times  _ so Tim didn’t have the luxury of sleeping on public transit as he would any other afternoon. 

When he had come home to the very messy apartment he called home, it was to paperwork he had forgotten he mailed to his doorstep that he most definitely could not leave waiting for another day. Which had led to another night of paperwork that he had been slaving over for what? Gala preparations? Of course, it was something like that keeping him up. 

So when he had clocked in at work, the one time he hadn’t forgotten, he had very little keeping him awake, considering he had skipped over coffee in a rush to get to work. (Apparently, coming in late was a bad public image for someone so close to Mr. Wayne and his associated children was not a good look for him.)

So,  _ yes,  _ he had dozed off for a moment when he was in the middle of forging Mr. Wayne’s signatures on the paperwork that was moreso approvals for the Gala than it was anything  _ severely  _ important that needed signing off after looking through the paperwork with a fine comb. And yes, most of the Gala paperwork were caterers and booking the hall (Which, apparently they had to book a hall under their own name? That was kinda funny.) and the rest of it was inviting guests and waiting on RSVP’s from important guests who he didn’t give a shit about.

Well, he didn’t give a shit about much at all anymore. Such came from Gotham-bred figures, though the instinct was probably elevated when it came to being the personal assistant to the most infuriating man in Gotham. 

So yes, he did not give much of a shit about anything, least of all a list of blowhard rich people. 

And of  _ course,  _ the minute he decided to shut his eyes for a minute, Richard Grayson had rounded the corner and made his way over to Tim’s desk, immediately grinning at the sleeping assistant that had been his favourite person at one point, around when he had left for Bludhaven and Tim had inserted himself into Bruce’s life in the form of a snot-nosed intern with big eyes and a strong will. 

He wasn’t really sure how he could stand himself sometimes, he wasn’t sure how anyone else had. Fourteen-year-old Tim was a brat with a big brain that he had never been more excited to use, which was something that he prided and hated himself about. Fourteen-year-old Tim was also a little shit who had walked around like he owned the place sometimes, which, twenty-year-old Tim surmised, was accurate right now. Accurate enough, anyway. 

“Timmy!” Dick exclaimed, slamming his hands onto the desk Tim had propped himself up on, a grin so bright on his face it could probably burn a hole through his retinas if he looked at it too long. Tim startled awake at the movement, blinking rapidly and shaking his head slightly, sitting up straight. He regarded Dick with dead eyes, levelling with him. 

“Hello, Mr. Grayson. How can I help you today?” He asked, polite and distant as he could be with a sleep-addled mind that refused to give him a break, slurring his words slightly. Dick furrowed his brows slightly at the words, catching the slip in the sentence and tipping his head to the side. 

“I think you need a break,” He declared, gaining a snort from Tim. Dick frowned. “What? What did I say?” 

“I can’t just  _ take a break _ ,” Tim laughed slightly, shaking his head as he returned to the writings on his papers. He forged another signature, this time one to hire a neat little band of five, all equipped with string instruments and bookings that were quite expensive. It wasn’t so much as a drop in Mr. Wayne’s never-ending budget, so it was fine. 

“What do you mean?” Dick asked, still frowning. Tim looked up at him, head tilted slightly to the side as he realized Dick wasn’t joking in what he was saying. He sat up slightly, looking at him with a dangerous smile that made Dick shudder a little, but he was trapped in his line of sight now that Tim had fixed his gaze on him. 

“Respectfully, Mr. Grayson, I don’t think you completely understand exactly how much of this company is held up by the fact that almost all of the decisions made are double-checked, then triple-checked, then looked over and brought to a committee and then discussed more and  _ finally  _ signed off, paired with the very extensive task of wrestling through HR and then trying to level with the budget department. And you know who does all that?” 

Dick frowned a little, speaking slowly. “...You?” Tim nodded, looking away for a moment, stacking a pile of papers and straightening them out. 

“Exactly, Mr. Grayson. Now, is there anything I can help you with?” Tim asked once more, looking up at him again through raven hair, considering tying it back for a moment before deciding that visitors got a bit too handsy with him whenever he did tie it back. Of course, they usually learned their lesson when he had nerve-struck their arm, but it was still more trouble than it was work just for people to pat their head. 

“Um,” Dick spoke up, scrambling for an excuse before nodding, growing a bit more confident as he spoke. “Yeah, I need to see Bruce.” Tim nodded, pulling out a clipboard from one of his many drawers and set it on the desk facing Dick, setting a pen on it. 

“Sign in and wait ten minutes.” Dick frowned again. 

“But he’s my dad. Kinda.” 

Tim looked up at him with half-lidded eyes, the dead look in them rivalling a man who had been spite very many times and had little to no patience with the world, which was an accurate assessment for Tim. 

“Sign in,” Tim stated dully. “And wait ten minutes.”

Dick signed and waited ten minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, taking requests on this if u want any specific scenario for tim and the various batfamily members to be a part of <3 thanks for reading


	3. Chapter 3

Despite popular belief, Tim had only ever taken a sick day once in his entire life so far. 

When confronted with a caffeine-addicted workaholic who had been in one of the most stressful positions in his life, most people wouldn’t see that as a remote possibility, not at all. Tim looked like the type of person that could be pushed over with a large gust of wind and be torn apart by a stapler. 

Of course, Gothamites were tough. Again, it was bred into them and any Gotham child without tough skin was a  _ dead  _ Gotham child and that Gotham child was of no use to the population at all. Which sounded insensitive, but still. Gotham children were resourceful and smart and very good at whatever they hyper fixated on in their youth. This was probably how most Gotham villains were born, so it was probably a bad process, but it was the thought that counted. 

So no, Tim had not once taken a break in a very long time. The one day he did take off led to Wayne Enterprises crashing quite suddenly in the stock-market. It was probably unrelated, but Tim was not taking any chances at all when it came to something as important as this. Not to mention he was still a snot-nosed little teenager fearing retribution for all, so he vowed never to take a break again. 

Tim made it a regular habit to fight through his very many symptoms and threw up in a bucket under his desk when he had a stomach ache before emptying it out and returning to his work after lunch. The interns thought it was gross, but it was a necessary evil to him when it came to the good of the company that had kept him in commission and also managed to keep him on Mr. Wayne’s good side. It was very much convenient in this line of work particularly. Not so much when he had an army of vigilantes who had grown fond of him somehow. 

That was probably the biggest surprise to Tim, really. How he had amassed a following of vigilantes that he had managed to charm with what? His increasingly growing spite to the world? His insults fueled by caffeine and his annoyance to his employer? Absolutely ridiculous, Tim would have to question if the vigilantes of Gotham were particularly well-adjusted. 

So, no, he didn’t get sick. But when he did, he still went into work, and this happened to be the day that Mr. Wayne had miraculously come into work after a couple of months being missing, along with his legion of children. The army of Wayne children had been incredibly perceptive, and if  _ one  _ didn’t notice, then one of the others would. 

Tim sneezed quietly as he shuffled through more paperwork, sat behind his desk as usual. He had a very large mug sat on his desk that was probably in a homemade mug, it was almost bigger than both of Tim’s hands wrapped around it. This time, it was a very large mug of heated milk and honey. Despite popular belief, he wasn’t completely dependant on coffee, and the milk was a personal favourite of his when it came to being sick. Probably something addling his brain slightly. 

Mr. Wayne strode into the building amicably, slowing down as he walked over to his office and had caught sight of Tim. The old man was inexplicably fond of him for some reason, so Tim was able to use it as an excuse to get away with his many forgeries. Mr. Wayne seemed determined to get him self-defence lessons while he was at it, but decidedly, he did not have a death wish. 

“Tim! So good to see you, chum. Been a while!” Mr. Wayne greeted, Jason and Dick both following. The two eldest of the Wayne clan were one of the only ones that Tim had liked. Mostly because they almost never came over, and any less work trying to get things done was perfect for Tim in all his endeavours. 

Tim looked up from where he had been previously filling out an accident report for one of the interns who had burnt himself on the coffee machine with little to no knowledge on exactly how hot the machine was when considering the long line and how long it had needed to be on when the line had been incredibly long. He sniffled a little as he did so, discreetly wiping his nose before blinking past black spots clouding his vision, looking past them to Mr. Wayne. 

“Good to see you, sir. Glad to have you back at the company,” Tim greeted in response, politely smiling through a stabbing pain in his stomach that made him want to strangle himself with his intestines. He was great at acting, so the greeting was taken with a grain of salt. Mr. Wayne made his way into his office, gesturing to his sons to follow. It looked like they had something important to discuss, and knowing them, it had little to do with the company they were meeting at. 

“Oh, Tim?” Mr. Wayne called back over his shoulder, walking forward. “Can you get me the work-ups for the budget of the months I was gone? I wanna see what I’ve missed.” Tim nodded at the words, already clicking into the documents to draft a summary with some quick copy-pasting and editing. 

“Of course, sir,” Tim said easily, smile slipping from his face as his facade did as well. Mr. Wayne chuckled a bit at the words before entering the office. Tim continued his work for the next half-hour before finally finishing, printing out the many sheets for the full budget work-up of the last five months he had missed out on. 

He got up from his seat, walking over to the office with a woozy head that felt as though it had been stuffed with a messy piece of tissue and his mouth filled with cotton. Before he had stood up, he barely noticed just how dizzy he felt before getting up and subsequently wanting to fall over immediately. 

Tim stumbled a bit as he stopped by Mr. Wayne’s office door, being hit with a dizzy spell and screwing his face in confusion before blacking out and slipping down the doorframe in full view of Jason, Dick, and Mr. Wayne. 

...

When Tim came to, it was on a couch in an office as he stared up at fluorescent ceiling lights. He blinked a bit, confused, before sitting up slightly. He was almost immediately pushed down by his shoulder, reacting appropriately by striking out at the arm, gaining a more-shocked-than-pained gasp at the action. Hopefully, it had hurt for whoever decided to touch him. 

“Don’t get up yet, Tim,” The voice said quietly, Tim shaking his head and sitting up a bit again, raising a warning hand to the arm that tried to push him down and fixating him with a glare that could cut down a mountain. 

“I,” Tim started, coughing wetly. “Am going to get up to make sure this company doesn’t run itself into the  _ ground. _ ” 

Another voice laughed from next to him, which Tim eventually realized was Jason, which led to the conclusion that Dick was there as well, and so was-

“You are going to take a break, Tim. I’m not asking,” Mr. Wayne said seriously, arms crossed over his chest. Tim looked up at him despairingly. 

“Mr.  _ Wayne _ -” 

“Go home, Tim,” Mr. Wayne said decisively, stepping forward with a sweater that looked much too large for Dick, let alone Tim. He took it nonetheless, because who was he to refuse something that looked so comfy? 

Tim coughed again, glaring at the three figures in the room. “You better hope you don’t cause another stock market crash while I’m gone.” Tim was decidedly bitter at this sudden turn in action, but when he was as sick as he was, there was most of his usual fight in him, but the little part that kept his will very strong and intact in the face of rest was very lost. 

Dick blinked. Jason blinked. 

“The stock market crashed when you weren’t here?” Jason questioned. Tim shrugged. 

“Only Wayne Enterprises,” Tim said, a smile slowly creeping its way up his face. “Good luck. And please get me the big mug full of milk on my desk, it’s the only thing that doesn’t want to make me throw up everything I’ve eaten in the past few days, which would be decidedly ugly. I’ll email you what needs to get done tomorrow.”

  
Dick nodded, leaving to get the mug. Tim’s eyes followed him, a gleeful feeling rising in his chest. 

_ Oh, the interns were going to tear him apart. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up, organized chaos in the form of the wayne family running the company

**Author's Note:**

> read a work about this concept and was immediately hooked. trying to slowly wean myself away from all the angst and hurt/comfort i write. if u have any requests at all about secretary tim and what scenarios to write him into, please leave suggestions below <3 thanks for reading!


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